in review

in review

summer break

in review

in review

In high school, I had a trip to Brussels for a choir festival and we had arrived a day earlier than we needed, so my choir and I made a day trip to Bruges. I remembering being very salty about that, because our “rival” school also arrived a day early and they got a day trip to Paris! (I put “rival” in quotation marks, because that school was my school’s rival for athletics and stuff, but not for choir festivals because choir festivals are about coming together lol.) Anyways, after many years, I’ve made it to Paris at last!

Whilst making our way toward St. Paul’s Cathedral, Mira, Poonie, and I passed by Joe & the Juice. Mira was really excited about this because she had gone to the store in Iceland, and has since associated the store with Iceland. We popped in to see what all the rage was about, and I was immediately taken by the interior. I resolved to buy a drink and rest my feet there, even though I had just bought a can of Innocent bubbles lemon and lime from Sainsbury’s and was sipping away at it.

Mira, Poonie, and I hit up the Hoxton location for dinner, and surprisingly, there was no queue! We were seated right away, and there were only two other parties dining. I was told that the Soho location always has a super long queue, and I’d think probably an even longer queue for brunch, so we definitely got lucky, or perhaps we were simply more strategic.

Of Cambridge, London, and Paris, I was most excited for London! I probably would have been most excited for Paris, but I had been warned that Paris might not be as wonderful and magical and romantical as I might imagine, so I muted my anticipation to protect myself from feeling disappointed. Thus, London! I scoured blogs for recommendations and was especially looking forward to having fabulous brunches and afternoon teas. Alas, Dalloway Terrace, Sketch, and Sanderson were all booked for the days we were in London. But no matter! There was plenty else to do…

I’m… one of those people… who just… take pictures of flowers… And blog about them… And I don’t even know anything about flowers!! Thus, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to devote a whole blog post to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, because what the heck would I write about? (That’s also probably why I never blog about museums.) But I loved these photos too much, and there were too many of them to cram into my 2 days in Cambridge blog post, which was already quite long. So here it is! A blog post about flowers!

One night three years ago, the Tanner sisters disappeared: fifteen-year-old Cass and seventeen-year-old Emma. Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held. But to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter, something doesn’t add up. Looking deep within this dysfunctional family Dr. Winter uncovers a life where boundaries were violated and a narcissistic parent held sway. And where one sister’s return might just be the beginning of the crime.

Dad had a conference in Cambridge, so the rest of the family tagged along for a vacation. Yay! We only had two days in Cambridge, but it seems that most people say that there’s not much to do in Cambridge anyway, except visit colleges and go punting, so the time that we had was plenty. Though, I quite like the pace of life in Cambridge and wouldn’t have minded spending a few extra cosy days there.

It’s been a crazy month of travels! I’ve been giving little updates throughout July and I’ll be sharing more about it throughout August, so I won’t be going into too much detail about that in this blog post. Whilst traveling in Europe, I found time in the evenings to catch up with the blogosphere, read your lovely comments, and reply to them. Now I’m back in Beijing, so once again I’ll be sparse with my replies (forgive me!), but I’ll still be reading all your comments via email notifications! By mid-August I’ll be back in Philly and have a few weeks to myself before school starts at the beginning of September. Eeek!

Whilst in Shanghai, I spent a day with Sheena and a day with Grace. If you read my blog post about it, you’ll know that with Grace I spent the day at 田子坊, a place with a bunch of boutique shops, and within this enclave we found a shop where we could make our own customised music boxes. I’m kicking myself for not remembering the name of the shop so that you could check it out for yourself if you wanted to make your own music box, as it probably won’t be very easy to find, even if you are already within 田子坊; the storefront looked like any of the other shops, and you don’t know until you go inside that there’s a small loft, upon which there is a sort of studio where you can make your own music box.